Perspiration beaded on the forehead of a frail Myron "
Pep" Levin as he testified Wednesday how his former
racquetball partner, Rabbi Fred J. Neulander, revealed a
wish to come home one night and find his wife "dead on the
floor."

Levin told jurors health problems have robbed him of his
ability to read and impinged on his memory.

But Levin said he remembers in detail the day seven
years ago when Neulander confided in him at a Cherry Hill
health club that he wanted his wife dead and asked if Levin
could help find someone to murder her.

"We just got done playing racquetball," Levin
testified, "and he threw his racket on the floor ... and
says, `I wish I could get rid of my goddamn wife. I would
have her killed on the ground one day when I get home.'"

That's exactly what Camden County prosecutors say the
rabbi orchestrated about three months later. The rabbi's
wife, Carol, was beaten to death inside the family's Cherry
Hill home on the night of Nov. 1, 1994. Her husband
discovered the body on a blood-soaked living room carpet.

The rabbi, charged with hiring two hit men to carry out
his wife's murder, faces a possible death sentence if
convicted. Among other witnesses called by prosecutors on
the trial's third day were the rabbi's daughter, who
testified about her phone conversation with her mother
moments before the slaying, and a colleague who detailed
unusual behavior by Neulander hours before he discovered
his wife's body.

Levin, 76, was spirited Wednesday but stumbled through
some testimony, mixing up dates and even failing to
remember the federal crimes that landed him in prison for
more than two years. Levin was convicted in 1978 of food
stamp fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy in a racketeering
case. The Cherry Hill resident now owns an outdoor
advertising company.

Since testifying before a county grand jury in 1997,
Levin suffered a stroke and underwent two heart bypass
operations.

In testimony heavy with expletives, Levin said his first
reaction to Neulander's comments was: "What are you, crazy?
Are you nuts?"

He said the rabbi next asked if Levin knew anyone who
could carry out the killing.

"You've got a lovely wife. Stick with her," Levin said
he replied. "I ain't talking about nothing. Forget you even
told me what you said."

Levin repeatedly wiped sweat from his brow and neck
Wednesday, and prosecutor James Lynch and Superior Court
Criminal Presiding Judge Linda Baxter asked him several
times if he could continue. Each time, he said yes.

Under cross-examination by defense attorney Jeffrey
Zucker, Levin admitted he didn't tell investigators about
Neulander's statements when interviewed in December 1994 or
February 1995. Not until a third interview, in March 1995,
did Levin provide some of those details to
investigators.

And it wasn't until September 1997, just before testifying
to the grand jury, that Levin told them Neulander asked for
help finding a killer. That was after he learned from a
prosecutor's investigator that Neulander had cheated him in
the purchase of a Torah for the rabbi's Cherry Hill
synagogue, M'kor Shalom.

Zucker suggested Levin changed his story in
retaliation.

In earlier testimony Wednesday, the Neulanders' daughter,
Rebecca Neulander Rockoff, recounted for the jury two phone
conversations she had with her mother shortly before the
murder. One call ended only moments before the slaying, she
said.

Rockoff, 31, lived in Philadelphia at the time, but now
lives in Connecticut.

She testified that her mother invited two men into the
family's Highgate Lane home while talking to Rockoff by
phone on Nov. 1, 1994. Rockoff said her mother told her one
of the visitors was the same man who had stopped by two
weeks earlier to leave a package for the rabbi.
Coincidentally, Rockoff and her mother were talking by
phone during that visit, on Oct. 18, she said.

Carol Neulander told her daughter the man asked to use
the bathroom during the first visit. When Carol Neulander
called her daughter back that night, she said the envelope
delivered by the man was empty, Rockoff testified.

On the night of her mother's murder, Rockoff said, they
again were talking by phone when Carol Neulander said a
visitor walking up the front steps was the "bathroom guy."
Their conversation ended shortly afterward.

Rockoff's next contact with the family, she said, was a
call from her father - he told her there had been an
accident at the house.

Rockoff described her father's demeanor that night at
the family home as "quiet, just very quiet, and
hurting."

Earlier on Wednesday, the jury viewed color autopsy photos
as Camden County Medical Examiner Robert Segal described in
grim detail the injuries that killed Carol Neulander. Segal
spoke in technical medical terms, describing how a blunt
instrument tore and bruised the 52-year-old victim's head,
broke her skull and injured her brain.

Segal said Carol Neulander suffered about a dozen blows,
including a series of seven wounds that were "all parallel
and all clustered," indicating the blows were delivered
while she was on the floor and not moving.

During Segal's testimony, the rabbi sat leaning on the
defense table, his mouth set in a hard line and turned down
at the corners, his eyes glistening at times.

Also on Wednesday:

Jurors heard a tape of Fred Neulander, made the
morning after his wife's murder, in which he told
investigators he wasn't involved in any extramarital
affairs. Former Philadelphia radio personality Elaine
Soncini testified Tuesday about a two-year affair she had
with the rabbi before the murder. Prosecutors allege
Neulander had his wife killed so he could get out of his
marriage and be with Soncini.

The panel heard testimony from Lt. Art Folks of
the Camden County Prosecutor's Office, an investigator on
the case. Five weeks after the murder, Folks said,
Neulander again denied having any affairs, even after
investigators asked him about Soncini.

Folks also testified that in the interview, Neulander
told investigators he didn't know about a delivery to his
house two weeks before the murder. Prosecutors say the
deliveryman who used the bathroom that day is Leonard
Jenoff, who claims the rabbi hired him to kill Carol
Neulander. Jenoff and an associate, Paul Daniels, have
confessed to the murder and await sentencing after they
testify in the Neulander trial.

M'kor Shalom's cantor, Anita Hochman, testified
she was leading choir practice the night of the murder when
Fred Neulander interrupted the session. Unlike the rare
occasions when he had entered a practice prior and waved
silently to her, that night he entered the room and greeted
the 40 or so people, she said. "He had never done it in
that way before," Hochman said.

She also testified Neulander met with her in her office
six to eight weeks after the murder and admitted having
affairs with two congregants. He identified one as Robin
Gross, Hochman testified, but did not name the second
woman. The cantor testified she later learned from other
sources the second woman was Soncini.